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News from the Library of Congress

Contact: Craig D'Ooge (202) 707-9189

March 7, 1996

New Voices: Poets Laura Mullen and Carol Snow To Read at the Library of Congress

On Thursday evening, March 14, poets Laura Mullen and Carol
Snow will read from their work in the Mumford Room on the sixth
floor of the James Madison Memorial Building. The reading,
presented under the auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall
Poetry and Literature Fund, will begin at 6:45 p.m.; tickets are
not required.

Laura Mullen is the author of The Surface, which was
chosen for the National Poetry Series and published by the
University of Illinois. She was awarded Ironwood's Stanford
Prize in 1983, and has been the recipient of fellowships from the
National Endowment for the Arts and the MacDowell Colony. She is
a member of the graduate faculty at Colorado State University.

Carol Snow's first book, Artist and Model, won the Joseph
Henry Jackson Award in Literature as a manuscript in progress;
the completed manuscript was selected for the National Poetry
Series and published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1990, receiving
the 1990 Book Award from the Poetry Center at San Francisco State
University. She is Financial Director of the Blue Bear School of
American Music, a nonprofit school specializing in rock, pop,
jazz, and blues, which she entered as a songwriter in 1971.

The poetry and literature reading series at the Library of
Congress is the oldest in the Washington area, and one of the
oldest in the United States. This annual series of public poetry
and fiction readings, lectures, symposia, and occasional dramatic
performances began in the 1940s and has been almost exclusively
supported since 1951 by a gift from the late Gertrude Clarke
Whittall, who wanted to bring the enjoyment and appreciation of
good literature to a larger audience. The Poetry and Literature
Center, which administers the series, is also the home of the
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a position that has existed
since 1936, when the late philanthropist Archer M. Huntington
endowed the Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress. Since
then, many of the nation's most eminent poets have served as
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and, after the
passage of Public Law 99-194 in 1985, as Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry. The Poet Laureate suggests authors to read in the
literary series, plans other special literary events during the
reading season, and usually introduces the programs.

Interpreting services (American Sign Language, Contact
Signing, Oral and Tactile) will be provided if requested five
business days in advance of the event. Call (202) 707-6362 TTY
and voice to make a specific request. For other ADA
accommodations please contact the Disability Employment Program
office at (202) 707-9948 TTY and (202) 707-7544 voice.